Fighting blight

Land bank purchases two local properties, plans to return them to productive use

In a half-empty room in the Allegheny County Courthouse at the conclusion of a monthly sheriff’s sale Monday, the Tri-COG Land Bank purchased two properties.

The moment might have seemed anticlimactic, but the parcels were the first purchased by a land bank in Allegheny County, the culmination of years of work by land bank members.

“It’s exciting. This is a new chapter for us,” said An Lewis, executive director of the Tri-COG Land Bank who has been working on the issue for about seven years.

Land banks aim to take vacant and tax-delinquent parcels and return them to productive use.

The state law allowing the creation of land banks was passed in 2012. More than a dozen have been created throughout the commonwealth, although many are still in their preliminary stages.

“We went through a long process of reviewing the properties, evaluating them, we met with the communities that referred them to us. We talked to them about their priorities,” Ms. Lewis said.

The Tri-COG Land Bank is made up of a number of municipalities: Braddock Hills, Clairton, Dravosburg, East Pittsburgh, Edgewood, Forest Hills, McKeesport, Monroeville, North Braddock, Pitcairn, Rankin, Swissvale and Turtle Creek plus several local school districts.

On Monday, it purchased 430 Morris St., a vacant parcel in Edgewood, for $43,338.64, and 519 Sunnyside Ave., an unoccupied house in East Pittsburgh, for $10,013.51.

The communities where the two properties are located referred the sites for purchase by the land bank nearly a year ago, Ms. Lewis said.

Edgewood officials had tried unsuccessfully in the past to have the Morris Street property sold at sheriff’s sale.

“We’rehappy to see [the land bank]up and running,” as a tool to combatvacant and tax-delinquent properties, said Julie Bastianini, Edgewoodborough manager.

Located on a residential street with single-family homes, the property could be the site of a new home or it could be sold to an interested neighbor, Ms. Bastianini said.

“We’d just like to see it owned and taken care of by somebody,” she said.

Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette photos An Lewis, executive director of Tri-COG Land Bank, during a break Monday at a sheriff’s sale in the Allegheny County Courthouse, Downtown.

Mail overflows from a box at an East Pittsburgh property that An Lewis purchased at a sheriff’s sale Monday at the Allegheny County Courthouse.